


Help Out

by Aaron_The_8th_Demon



Category: Van Helsing (TV 2016)
Genre: F/M, Self-Reflection, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-05
Updated: 2018-11-05
Packaged: 2019-08-19 07:43:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16530344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aaron_The_8th_Demon/pseuds/Aaron_The_8th_Demon
Summary: Maybe it meant nothing.





	Help Out

**Author's Note:**

> This work is less canon-compliant than my others have been in the fandom, in that it ignores the part of E209 where Axel and Scarlett sleep together. For the purposes of this story, they are not a thing.
> 
> There is also a reference to [Fading Light](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16014656) at the beginning in case you haven't read that one.
> 
> Um... also, usual disclaimer that I'm gay and don't necessarily know what I'm talking about. But I kind of assume women can have wet dreams and orgasm in their sleep just like men do. If I'm wrong, feel free to call me out on it, because the fact is I just don't know for sure.
> 
> Please, PLEASE also read the end notes.

_He was touching her… he was in her… she was about to…_

Vanessa wondered why nobody’d ever said anything about it when she’d been a teenager - how girls had wet dreams just like boys did. Because she woke up mid-orgasm from said wet dream, thinking about how they should’ve said something to each other by now. Except that was almost impossible, because right after she’d been scooped up by Blak Tek and now they were busy hunting Elder totems and all that shit. There wasn’t really a lot of time for romantic melodrama.

As if anything could be considered romantic, anyway. They’d been debating the different levels that both of them had lost in their humanity and she’d told him he should actually get some sleep like a normal person. And then she’d kissed Axel, or she’d let Axel kiss her, or some combination of the two. Vanessa didn’t consider any of that particularly romantic.

But now she’d just woken up from a dream where he’d been between her legs and making her come.

In the real world, Axel was sitting on a rock, staring into the little fire he’d built. The gold light flickered across his exhausted face, making his circled eyes even blacker so that it looked like he’d been punched. Vanessa wondered if he’d always had a hard time sleeping, or if it’d started after the Rising.

Strangely, distressingly, Axel also looked… kind of sad. He was poking at the fire a little, then checking his M4, then sitting and gazing blankly into the flames again. And Vanessa got that even if he did get enough sleep, he’d still look tired. Because despite starving himself almost to the point of dying on the long march to undo his vampirism, some part of him had still been stolen and crushed into nothing by the experience. So his eyes would always be sleepy and his grin would be a little less bright, because he’d been on the other side of death and nothing could surprise him anymore.

It was an unexpected blow. Vanessa hadn’t been having an easy time accepting Axel and Scarlett as part of her mission - sometimes she felt like she’d lost all ability to connect with anyone. But watching her guardian-turned-friend as he suffered in silence, she started to get that twinge of kinship again. Someday, she should ask him about it. He’d probably understand, even if nobody else would.

“You awake?” Axel muttered from across the fire.

Vanessa nodded and sat up. There wasn’t much point in pretending she wasn’t. A glance over made her jealous of Scarlett, because her sister was off in dreamland like she was sleeping on memory foam and vampires had never existed.

“It’s kinda amazing,” he remarked, also indicating Scarlett. “I wonder how she does it.”

“Clean conscience,” Vanessa guessed, sitting a little closer to Axel’s campfire. It wasn’t warm out and she’d been lying on the ground. “You should try to sleep, too.”

“Yeah, I should,” he agreed, not even twitching to indicate he’d actually do so.

She decided to just get it over with: “I’m sorry for being bitchy at you before… you were trying to help and I wouldn’t let you.”

“It’s no big deal,” he shrugged. “You got all kinds’a shit going on that I prob’ly don’t even know about, right? Not your fault.”

Vanessa just shook her head a little and was quiet for a second. He had no idea about a lot of things - how the Elder had tried to be sneaky about making an attempt on her life, what she’d been through at Blak Tek… the fact she’d just been dreaming about him. It shouldn’t feel so uncomfortable for her. It wasn’t like Axel could see inside her brain.

“So what happened?” he finally asked, watching her with that same tired look.

“In the lab or just now?”

“Both.”

Vanessa gave him a short rundown of Blak Tek and then her vision. “The Elder was actually trying to kill me.”

“Yeah, of course,” Axel snorted. “I knew it was insane to deal with that thing as long as we did… least you got some good info out of it, right?”

“Yeah.” She was trying not to cringe away from him, because X-rated dreams aside, his eyes were still showing that empty sadness that came with suffering a fate worse than death. It made her wonder how, in the light of day when he had to act like his old self (even though Doc and Julius and the others were all far away from them, now), Axel managed to tape himself back together - all quipping, sarcasm and cheerful cynicism. In the darkness that was broken only with a tiny campfire, it felt like she could see what he really was, deconstructed and quietly wallowing in despair. This was the thought that made her ask: “Are you okay?”

Axel snorted. “I didn’t think you gave a shit these days.”

“Fuck off. I have a lot on my plate.”

“There, see? That sounds a lot closer to the new you.”

“I’m being serious.”

“I’m still alive. I can’t get turned into a vampire again or any of that shit, so… besides, you’re the one doing all the real shit. I just help out where I can.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Now he sighed. “Yeah, I know. I’ll live.” His eyes flicked down to the fire, but when they met hers again they were a little brighter. “Y’know, for a few days the dreams stopped happening… we thought the guys in the helicopter got you.”

“They did,” Vanessa admitted. “I’ve died more times than you have.”

At least that made him snicker a little. “Good thing it didn’t take, huh?”

They were both quiet for a few moments. Axel was watching her with that tired gaze of his, but something else seemed to be flickering in his expression beyond just the light of the flames. He poked a little at the fire again, then moved over so that he was sitting much closer to her than he had been. He didn’t even try to be subtle about it, but… Vanessa decided she didn’t want him to be. He was being honest, like always. Axel was honest with her, even when he didn’t like it.

She started thinking - it’d been awhile. Maybe that’s why she was dreaming about her friend. And losing touch with her humanity was making her look for excuses, like that she’d be okay or back to normal eventually because at least she worried about losing her humanity and had sex dreams about sarcastic marines. (The logical part of her mind knew it would only be a matter of time until the rest of her ability to empathize or have any emotions besides rage would deteriorate.)

And Axel was looking at her, not blinking. Because he wished he could feel alive again, just like Vanessa wished she could feel at all - it was written all over his face.

 

At least they’d had enough brain power to discuss this choice a little bit first. Things being what they were, malnutrition was a fact of life, so for the last couple months… she hadn’t been…

Which was a really good thing. Because if Axel had to hazard a guess, even if he found any condoms, they were probably all expired by now anyway.

That particular issue aside, he wondered if this had been a good idea. Vanessa wasn’t acting any different towards him than she had before they’d hooked up, so maybe she was just nonchalant about it. Maybe it meant nothing to her. And that… bothered him. Axel had needed it, it was like being hungry, because for a few minutes he could forget about the disturbing stain on his psyche and feel like the man he’d been before. She’d made him be okay again.

_Undoing his belt… it occurred for maybe two seconds how impractical being naked was, because something might attack them. And after those two seconds he stopped caring. Skin contact was just so important right then. It was absolutely necessary for some reason that he could figure out later, when he had the time._

A few hours ago, Axel was briefly allowed to feel normal. Now the sun was up, they were walking, and he was back in purgatory. (For some reason he had to keep convincing himself that it wasn’t hell. Hell had been vampirism… now he was in purgatory, still suffering, if not as much. It shouldn’t need convincing, but it did.) And he also had a strange flicker of guilt to go along with everything else. Vanessa was acting exactly the same towards him as she had been since their reunion, so maybe she hadn’t gotten anything out of it at all.

_Touching each other… it didn’t matter that they were both grimy and unwashed. Most of the smell was on their clothes anyway, and those had been shed, so it made no difference. She was warm under his hands, and it seemed vaguely ridiculous that her skin was soft when she was so hard and unyielding in every other way._

Not a lot of talking happened while they were on the move like this - the need to avoid unnecessary confrontation with ferals demanded it. So that meant Axel was marching along and couldn’t just ask like he usually would’ve. Most of his brain was doing its normal thing and calculating details about their progression towards San Francisco, but a tiny section was thinking about whether he’d been being somehow selfish last night. Maybe he wasn’t as good as he thought…? It’d been awhile since he’d had any practice, after all… Or maybe he just hadn’t given her the right answer.

_He paused - it felt like he should hesitate for a second, so he did. She was giving him an odd look._

_“What? You change your mind or something?”_

_“You’re not… in love with me or anything, right?”_

_He couldn’t lie. “I don’t know.”_

_Mercifully, she nodded. “Okay, go ahead.”_

It was such a strange question, asked at such a strange moment. Axel couldn’t help wondering why, exactly, Vanessa hadn’t asked that before they’d gotten naked or after they’d finished. Instead it had been right at the point of no return, he’d been about to slide in and she’d kind of sprung it on him. But it also raised an interesting point. Axel hadn’t ever thought about it before that moment, and he really wasn’t certain either way. He didn’t think so… but maybe he was. Axel had never been in love before, so he couldn’t say for sure.

_It was kind of weird and maybe a little stupid how turned on he’d gotten by her chewing his neck - not drawing blood, but definitely enough that it hurt - because as foreplay went, he’d never been interested in pain before. But this time it got him so hard that he could pound nails with his dick. Of course, that was kind of in her best interest, too, so he figured it made sense. Now, as he was moving and his face was half-jammed into her neck, he thought vaguely that maybe he should’ve returned the favor… but then, she also possibly wouldn’t have appreciated it. Good idea for another time, maybe._

It had at least been a relief at the time. Axel got to forget about avoiding packs of feral vampires and tracking down all-powerful Elders. He didn’t have to relive the pain and starvation of his undeath at random (usually inconvenient) intervals. He’d been a warm body moving against another warm body, both of them escaping the situation for a few stolen moments. And then… he’d even managed to commit a cardinal sin while he was at it. Because of course he had.

_He came first, and for him, it was a fucking explosion. It left him shaking and clumsy, fumbling to get his own dead weight off her even though she probably wouldn’t have cared anyway. Now mostly on his side, he finished her with his fingers and was amused but completely unsurprised that she growled when she got off. For a golden moment, everything was still and quiet, both of them just lying there as their brain chemistry finished going berserk. Then he remembered that it wasn’t warm out, and that god dammit he came first, which was generally considered rude and selfish in his experience. Incredibly, it was mostly the second thought that made him drag himself up and go for his clothes._

Last night’s escapade notwithstanding, Axel was also concerned with their food and ammunition inventories, because they were going to have to scavenge again soon. There was still probably a week’s worth of walking until they actually got to San Francisco, too. Details. So many details, but he knew all of them. He understood Vanessa and Scarlett’s plan. He occupied his brain by giving himself a sitrep, because it made sense and felt important to mentally take stock in a regular pattern.

_He was already wondering if this had been a blunder. They were sitting around the fire again, almost directly opposite each other. Clothed and settled, it was like nothing had even changed, and that seemed… wrong. He went with what he’d said when she’d turned him back._

_“Thank you.”_

_She was half-watching him with disinterest. “Sure.”_

_He wondered if she thought he was thanking her for having sex with him. He wasn’t, though - he was grateful for the intermission from his annoying, chaotic life. He wanted to tell her so, too, but her eyes weren’t even focused; she was thinking about something, and whatever was happening in her brain was more important than him. It wasn’t surprising or hurtful, though. Her issues were always more important than him and he understood that._

**Author's Note:**

> So, I debated a lot whether I should post this. This may even end up being another work that I have issues with and ultimately delete after it's only been up for one day.
> 
> After reading the "Showrunner Q&A" (because I'm really that much of a fucking dork) I took two ideas and ran with them:
> 
> 1\. ["I love the nonchalance Axel has even when he's being tortured and potentially getting a lobotomy. Ever since he came back from being a vampire, he's had this kind of seen-it-all worldview, a sort of almost cheerful cynicism... ...How do you feel about this particular character's journey so far and how Jonathan Scarfe has been portraying him?" "Jonathan has given us a good dose of world-weary, right from his first cigarette and speech about missing Kit Kats and Subway sandwiches as he offered his own blood to keep a vampire alive (a vampire who was once a doctor that he had feelings for). That's a pretty good entrance for a character and a lot for an actor to play, and Jonathan isn't one to shy away from a good opportunity. Watching his Axel from Season 1 to his journey as a vampire in Season 2 (starving himself rather than letting himself go over to the dark side) to being back with a swagger and a twinkle in his eye but a little beat up and a lot sadder than before has been an exhilarating character growth to be a part of..."] Note the part about being "a little beat up and a lot sadder".
> 
> 2\. ["Nice poignant moment between the two sisters as Vanessa comes to terms with the possibility that she may completely turn and Scarlett will have to kill her. Do you think a part of Vanessa is hoping that will happen so she can finally be released from her torment, or is she not quite there yet?" "Vanessa has a long journey ahead, so I think she's just being honest and letting her sister know how dangerous the work they have ahead may be. She and Scarlett understand what they're in for, but sometimes you just have to say it out loud, and that's a lot of what their great scene in the graveyard is about."]
> 
> The full interview can be read here: https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/van-helsing-showrunner-qa-season-3-episode-2-super-unknown
> 
> In essence, this fic is just me being self-indulgent because I wish that Axel was with Vanessa instead of Scarlett. But I guess most fanfic is self-indulgent on the part of the writer, so that's my reasoning for posting it. Maybe somebody out there will like it.
> 
> ADDENDUM. This fic has been up for a little bit now and I've decided it can stay. Kudos/comments are welcomed.
> 
> If you enjoyed this work, please feel free to check out my original WIP, [Nucleus](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10027367).


End file.
